Most basketball tournaments promote their events saying that there will be great games in the championship finals and very rarely saying just how good the games will be leading up to the last day.
The championship finals are set for the annual Best of Prep hoop gathering at Chattanooga State Saturday night, but those teams playing for first place will really have to be special and put on an outstanding performance to tops those four semifinal games played on Friday night in front of another standing-room-only crowd.
Signal Mountain and Chattanooga Christian will battle for honors among girls in the first title game set for 7 p.m. while the Chattanooga Christian boys will face McCallie in the boys final around 8:30.
The Signal Mountain girls advanced with a 62-40 win over Tyner while the CCS girls had to hold on for dear life at the end to defeat Notre Dame by a 61-60 final. Then in the two boys’ semifinals, McCallie pulled ahead late to defeat Notre Dame by a 52-42 final while the Chattanooga Christian guys prevailed over Tyner by a 59-55 final.
Baylor and Meigs County were consolation winners among the girls as the Lady Red Raiders beat Red Bank by a 60-13 final before the Lady Tigers thumped defending champ LFO by a 64-28 final. Then in the boys consolation games, Signal Mountain held off Brainerd to win by 54-53 while Red Bank defeated East Hamilton by an 82-48 final.
McCALLIE BOYS 52, NOTRE DAME 42: The Blue Tornado improved to 12-1 with their fifth straight win while Notre Dame fell to 3-13 with the loss, but the Fighting Irish played their hearts out for 32 minutes and really gave McCallie more than they wanted before falling.
McCallie coach Steve Robison was just happy to advance with a win after beating the Irish for the third time this season.
“Notre Dame is always well prepared and coach Jonathon Adams does a great job as he head us really uncomfortable for most of the game. We were getting good shots, but they just weren’t falling,” Robison said following the game.
“We were finally able to make a few shots late and that was a huge momentum swing, but we felt like we needed to be playing with the lead since Notre Dame does such a great job controlling the pace. We got some good experience tonight and I’m just happy we bounced back and got the win,” he added.
Notre Dame’s Adams could only smile following the game, despite how bad he felt for his kids after coming up short.
“We’ve gotten better in recent weeks, but we still need to clean up the little stuff. I’m pleased for the most part as the effort was there and I love the fact that we gave ourselves a chance,” he nodded.
Ryan Wingard scored the first bucket of the game to put McCallie ahead 2-0 before Notre Dame scored eight straight points. Gaas Herman sank three straight free throws at the end to give the Irish a 14-8 lead when the first quarter ended.
Kenneth Chime had back-to-back slams midway through the second period to put McCallie back on top 15-14. A layup from Kaleb Gallman with 2:47 left in the half gave the Blue Tornado a 20-18 lead before the Irish scored the final four points in the last 17 seconds for a 22-20 halftime lead.
Notre Dame led most of the third quarter before a four-point play by Gallman in the final minute put McCallie ahead by 35-33 with a quarter remaining.
The Blue Tornado then scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter for a 43-33 lead with 5:05 to play and it never got much closer as McCallie was able to knock down five of seven from the free throw line to maintain their lead.
Gallman was tops for McCallie with 13 points whie Parker Robison had 11 and Chime 10. Herman was tops for Notre Dame with 21 points while Cole McCormick added 10.
McCallie also had an unofficial 27-20 edge in rebounds as Chime snagged 17. Max Santisteban had six for Notre Dame.
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN GIRLS 62, TYNER 40: The Lady Eagles improved to 13-2 with the 22-point win, but head coach Kendra Bell wasn’t the least bit pleased. Part of that was due to the fact that more than half of the Lady Eagles are sick, but they simply didn’t perform up to their ability and that’s what made the veteran coach so upset.
“We’re far from 100 percent right now, but I’m not at all pleased as we didn’t contain Tyner’s guards very well. We’re old school in that we play good defense, we rebound pretty well and we get the ball in the paint, but we’re going to take all of next week off in hopes of getting well,” she added.
The Lady Eagles had the scoring advantage in all four quarters, but it was the second half when the Lady Rams got outscored by a 37-20 total that Signal Mountain was able to pull away.
Carlee Lowry scored 31 points to lead the winners while Ashlyn Rock added 20. Mariya Staton and Shy Harrison were tops for Tyner with 13 and 11 points, respectively.
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN GIRLS 61, NOTRE DAME 60: The Lady Chargers improved to 9-4 with the win, but it got tense at the end when the Lady Irish overcame a 13-point deficit starting the final stanza to only fall a point short of winning.
CCS coach Laura Cottrell was about to pull her hair out in the waning minutes and was quick to admit that her girls missed a really good chance to lose this game.
“That was a tough one and we’re absolutely lucky to win,” Cottrell said after the game ended.
“We were just lucky that we put the ball in the basket one more time than they did, but we have to get better and that’s the message I sent to my girls when it ended. We were able to make some shots early, but we surely didn’t do anything to stop them late. But I guess that’s what happens when you have a bunch of young players,” Cottrell added.
Momo Moore, who is just an eighth grader, scored 28 points to lead the Lady Chargers while Aubriayana Camp was also in double figures with 12. Dayonna Perryman had 17 points to lead Notre Dame while Callie McCormick and Violet Wright were next with a dozen each.
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN BOYS 59, TYNER 55: It turned out to be a banner day for teams from CCS as they were the two best games all day. Head coach Wes Moore might not be able to talk today after doing so much yelling, but he was happy – and really relieved – when the final horn sounded.
“We just battled and battled, but I just told our guys at the half that we just needed to compete with them,” Moore said after his team improved to 9-5.
“I thought we showed a lot of grit as we never gave up. We made a nice run at the end of the second quarter to get within a point at the break before allowing Tyner to score the first eight points of the third. I think our defense may have been the difference, but my guys gave total energy and effort for 32 minutes and that made a difference.
“We made some big shots along the way, but we also had some huge stops at the end with the game on the line,” Moore smiled.
Reid Conley converted a four-point play in the final minute of the third quarter to put the Chargers up 41-39 with eight minutes to play. There were four lead changes and three ties in that final quarter.
Adarius Brewster sank two free throws with 2:52 to play to put Tyner up 50-49 for its last lead before the Chargers scored six straight points for a 55-50 lead with 54.8 seconds left following the second of two free throws by Dre Jackson.
A 3 from the wing by Tyner’s Kohl Ward with 8.2 seconds cut it to 58-55 before Conley sealed the deal by sinking the first of two charity tosses with 6.8 seconds left.
The Chargers could have made life a little easier had they been more successful at the free throw line as they hit just 18 of 35 for the game and nine of 17 in the fourth quarter alone.
Conley scored 20 points to lead CCS while Caiden Baldwin added 19 before fouling out late. Jackson was also in double figures with 13. Ricky Harper was tops for Tyner with 13 points while Ward followed with 11. Rodney Henderson was also in double figures with 10.
GIRLS SEMIFINAL SUMMARIES
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN 12 13 21 16 -- 62
TYNER 9 11 11 9 -- 40
SIGNAL MOUNTAIN (62) – Walker 1, Roberson 1, Clark, Redman 7, Carlee Lowry 31, Ashlyn Rock 20, Bohman 2.
TYNER (40) – Williams 3, Taylor, Shy Harrison 11, Brookins 6, Toney, Mitchell 7, Mariya Staton 13, Ellison, Crosby.
3-Point Goals: Signal Mountain 1 (Redman); Tyner 3 (Williams, Harrison, Staton).
NOTRE DAME 9 15 11 25 -- 60
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN 17 20 11 13 -- 61
NOTRE DAME (60) – Baird 6, Spurgeon 5, Dayonna Perryman 17, Pollak, Kitchings 5, Brown 3, Callie McCormick 12, Violet Wright 12.
CCS (61) – Aubriyana Camp 12, Allen, Wiechmann, Duble 2, Momo Moore 28, A. Matthews 4, E. Matthews, Hatten 6, Rainey 9.
3-Point Goals: Notre Dame 7 (McCormick 4, Perryman, Kitchings, Brown); CCS 6 (Moore 4, Camp 2).
BOYS SEMIFINAL SUMMARIES
McCALLIE 8 12 15 17 -- 52
NOTRE DAME 14 8 11 9 -- 42
McCALLIE (52) – Kennebrew 9, Knight, Kaleb Gallman 13, Kenneth Chime 10, Parker Robison 11, Kwasigroch 5, Wingard 4, Millner, Tipton.’
NOTRE DAME (42) – Hammond 3, Goeller, Sims, Gaas Herman 21, Santisteban 2, Roberts 6, Cole McCormick 10, Flowers.
3-Point Goals: McCallie 8 (Kennebrew 2, Gallman 3, Robison 2, Kwasigroch); Notre Dame 6 (Hammond, Herman 2, Roberts 2, McCormick).
TYNER 17 9 13 16 -- 55
CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN 9 16 16 18 -- 59
TYNER (55) – Rodney Henderson 10, Pinkerton 9, Brewster 7, Moore 3, Beeson, Ricky Harper 13, Dixson 2, Kohl Ward 11.
CCS (59) – Reid Conley 20, Dre Jackson 13, Wescher 2, Russell, Roddy, Lyons 3, Stinson 2, Caiden Baldwin 19.
3-Point Goals: Tyner 7 (Ward 3, Pinkerton, Brewster, Moore, Harper); CCS 3 (Conley, Jackson, Lyons).
SATURDAY'S SCHEDULE:
Red Bank vs. LFO, consolation girls for seventh, 10 a.m.
Brainerd vs. East Hamilton, consolation boys for seventh, 11:30 a.m.
Baylor vs. Meigs County, consolation girls for fifth, 1:00 p.m.
Signal Mountain vs. Red Bank, consolation boys for fifth, 2:30 p.m.
Tyner vs. Notre Dame, consolation girls for third 4:00 p.m.
Tyner vs. Notre Dame, consolation boys for third, 5:30 p.m.
Chattanooga Christian vs. Signal Mountain for girls championship, 7:00 p.m.
Chattanooga Christian vs. McCallie for boys championship, 8:30 p.m.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@gmail.com)